Going to put companies out of business?

Early days yet, like the start of computers, but how many of us saw the internet coming in 1980?

Building whatever you want with your PC and a 3d printer??

**LINK**

This one is different because it's physical and it's 3D visual

Computers were a new language and a hard learning curve, not this time though

"It is a chilling thought for defenders of intellectual property rights who have already seen piracy take its toll on the music and movie industries."

Edited By Ady1 on 21/09/2012 00:07:58

I'm building one of these, have a look at the video, and there is a build in recent MEWs. HHere is a video of one working and have a look at the guy's youtube channel  these machines have been around since at least 2008.

Regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 21/09/2012 06:26:18

I wonder how long it will be before they work out how to make things using a powdered metal process?

Maybe a cold spray then bake operation ?

It may sound insane now but if you told the engineers at general motors in the 70s that the conrods of their engines would be made this way in the future you would have been my the guys in the white coats at the front door as you left !

I suppose only time will tell .

Sad to say; I think this one is "different" because it's a commercial product.

The RepRap community is [was?] essentially about the creative exercise of designing self-replicating machines. To my mind; this product goes completely against that principle. ... What will be the Manufacturer's response when someone tries to clone this one?

Of course, in [the present] reality: These machines are far from cost-effective, and "piracy" is just a figment of some greedy Lawyer's imagination. There is currently much less risk from these extruders than from "home" CNC lathes and mills.

MichaelG.

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Added link to RepRap

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/09/2012 08:37:08

Before I retired at the end of 2007 we were using a powdered metal process. A bed of powdered metal was scanned by a high power laser which melted the powder. After each scan the unused powder was removed and replaced by a slightly deeper bed of powder. Items over 2 feet diameter and 10 inches high could be produced from any metal including high temperature alloys. OK, it was very expensive to produce a large item but the cost dropped rapidly if one was making a lot of small parts.

The durability of the these parts worries me, I cannot see any plastic component replacing a high load metal one like a con rod !

The example of a bottle opener, how many bottles will it open before you are back making another one ?

The gears, what loading will they take, as already plastic gears are causing problems to members of this forum with their mills and lathes.

I have no confidence in this method at all. I much prefer the choice of metal for purpose and a machine to make it.

In may only be useful for making very small unloaded parts anyway.

Clive

I see MakerBot have just opened a shop in Greenwich Village (USA).

As others have said, 3D printing is not that new, but it is taken to another level when we have shops on the high street selling printers.

I can see these shops eventually making parts to your file, or even scanning your broken 'egg whisk handle' and printing a replacement while-you-wait!

Ian

I think you are correct that it will put some companies out of business but it will allow others to flourish.

It has always has been so.

It was developed by the Engineering dept at Bah University and is intended as an open source, easy to build machine by non engineering people with little skill. The designs for products are also open source. It is intended as a home user experimental machine. I suppose that my bench top milling machine or even a small cnc machine is a bit 'Fairyland' for a lot of professional engineers, as was the thought of a powerful desktop computer 40 years ago. It wasn't that long ago that engineers would use Meccano to prototype ideas.

Hi Clive,

"The durability of the these parts worries me, I cannot see any plastic component replacing a high load metal one like a con rod !"

I don't think that these machines are intended to produce hughly stressed components out of plastic - especially with a homemade experimental machine like these, that would be 'Fairyland', but not everything is, or can be, made out of metal in our world.

Regards

Terry

This is just the start

As mentioned, powdered metal instead of plastic is next, producing at least aluminium standard pieces in the home

Then when they get cheap enough the hacker community will start to produce variants, trying to recycle plastic etc into components

Then there's "plywood" layered plastic, for improved strength

Then you can print a skin of expensive metal coating over the plastic component giving you hard anodising type of possibilities

The possibilities are pretty mind boggling

Edited By Ady1 on 21/09/2012 10:50:15

What about making patterns for castings!

Not sure about "lost plastic", the fumes might be a bit toxic but could the method be used for lost wax?

Years ago, after a pint or two, a little group of us 'dreamed up' Magnetic Holographic Projection, wherby metal particles would be held in space by the process and then heat fused into the solid. That seemed impossible, but it will probably be reality one day.

REPRAP seems like a clever application, but like all applications it must suit the process as does the laser / resin forming process.

Like fibreglass laminating, vacuum forming, injection moulding...., it won't be the answer to every problem but it will serve certain purposes extremely well. You wouldn't mass produce car gear boxes with it (yet) but for prototyping and pattern making, it's a useful tool. It's adoption by industry will be based on the economics of its use.

Edited By Chris Trice on 21/09/2012 12:59:22

Maybe. A step further might be that we'll be able to buy the 3D printers at PC World for £50 a pop. The bad news, of course, will be that the 'materials cartridges' will cost £1000 and be digitally 'chipped' so they expire after 50% usage!

Joe

Totally agree that most manufacturing is done by the same basic processes as they always have been, but not many 'new' processes disappear. The new processes are usually variations or combinations of the old ones that have been highly developed for some specific purpose. When the demand for the product made by that particular process dies off (maybe someone finds an even better way of doing it) then the original process might not get used. Odds are though its not disappeared, its just hiding and waiting for someone to rediscover it.

Is REPMAP a typo?

Ian

Yes, it is REPRAP. Yes, this stuff has been around for ages, but it is finally getting inexpensive enough to have a printer at home.

Don't dismiss the technology because it is in its infancy (for home use). I saw some of the first "Cupcake" machines from Makerbot, and what I see now from the home printers is 10x better. And, that's in about 5 years. (the home stuff is nothing like the 3D printer does @work, but it's getting better)

Decades ago, I was employed to to daily "management" of the Canadian ARPANET connection, which of course became the Internet when DARPA ended funding. Many, many, people thought that the ARPANET was a joke; these same people are emailing and skyping and googling today.

(my wife keeps bugging me to get a 3D printer for the workshop, but, like others, I do not have a lot of use for plastic on a steam locomotive, so I'm sitting this current round out, although putting an extruder on my CNC- (LinuxCNC) milling machine is quite easy, and I have the stl files for the extruder...)

Another JohnS

Professional standard 3D printers are available for under £9k now. Have a look at this video from Denford:

Edited By David Clark 1 on 21/09/2012 21:12:51

Russell,

Your video post has upset the wretched page layout.

MichaelG.

Oh no!

Having repaired (and sometimes tried to repair) the latest digital cameras and phones I know most of the techniques used to hold them together. Some seem to defy all known disassembly methods but ultimately I know that it must come apart somehow because it was put together from separate bits in the first place.

It seems that will no longer be true, the b****y things will have been manufactured from the outside in.

Ian